Pioneer DDJ-RZX

Meet the new boss, the Pioneer DDJ-RZX is a new beast, potentially the new ‘ultimate’ controller, or at least close.

Based on the DDJ-RZ controller, it has upgraded sound quality and studio quality sound colour FX from the DJM900 NXS2 which is rapidly gaining the reputation of the best sounding mixer on the market.

More obviously are the 3 screens built in. These are 7 inch touchscreens showing the waveforms, track and effects info AND video. Yes, VIDEO! The latest plugin for RekordBox DJ is now video and is included with the DDJ-RZX. This lets you play and mix regular music videos with 20 different transition effects. You can also use the touchscreens to control video effects like an XY pad. There’s also the choice of creating slideshows or even a live camera feed. Video and audio can be mixed separately, so there’s no need to have dedicated music videos, you can just add visual loops over existing audio tracks.

Pioneer has taken its’ experience of combing video and audio from their DVJ players and have made VJ’ing easier and more affordable than before, even when you factor in the price of a decent laptop, this setup is still about a quarter of the old hardware cost and content is much more readily available.

Similar to the the DDJ-RZ you have 2 USB ports for back to back DJs, built in colour effects, high quality crossfader, DVS capability (including the plugin). There’s also an improved mic section with 2 XLR / TRS combo inputs , 3 band EQ and mic FX. The mixer section has a dedicated sampler control section though this is only for the software, not stand alone.

At the moment, all we know is that it is RekordBox only. It may be a while before other software gets mapped to it and can make the most of the touch screens.

The best part about touch screens (and this is only a theory we have) is that at later dates, new virtual buttons can be added to control new features.

All of this, especially the video part, does increase the spec required to run smoothly and of course comes with a price tag of £2369.